


e'en then would be some stooping; and I choose ne'er to stoop

by Mrinalinee



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Established Relationship, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-07
Updated: 2010-05-07
Packaged: 2018-01-06 19:55:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1110895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mrinalinee/pseuds/Mrinalinee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Morgana still lives like a person who lives alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	e'en then would be some stooping; and I choose ne'er to stoop

**Author's Note:**

> Once I wrote myself some fic for Robert Browning's and my shared birthday. As one does.

On Monday, Morgana walks into the bathroom while Gwen's taking a shower and says, "Today I think I'll talk about marriage, and monogamy, and how detrimental expectations of same can be to the modern woman."

Gwen adjusts her towel. "I guess we shouldn't have been married then." She woke up late, which is unusual, and now she has no time to dry her hair before she leaves for work. She needs to reconsider her schedule. Sometimes she thinks that when Morgana was a child, she must have been one those children who thought whispering is speaking at the back of your throat and rounding down all your ess'es, one of those children who thought she could whisper without modifying her volume at all. Morgana blinks, and says, "That's different," and that's that.

When Gwen gets home, she's cooked dinner, and there are flowers on the table and about twenty dirty dishes in the sink.

When she gets home on Tuesday, Morgana's still sitting in front of their computer in her pants and t-shirt; she clearly hasn't left the house. "Morgana," sighs Gwen, and Morgana twists her neck in Gwen's direction without moving her eyes from the monitor. "What?" she says, and Gwen leaves the room, fetches the car keys and goes to buy the milk herself. 

She picks up Indian take-away on the way home, and she enters the kitchen to find Morgana drinking her tea without milk, face crumpled in mild disgust. It's an apology, and Gwen wonders briefly whether she ought to accept it.

After two years of living together, Morgana still lives in their house like a person who lives alone. She buys groceries on a whim without letting Gwen know, and leaves the cap off the toothpaste, and eats jam out of the jar standing up, for breakfast, before Gwen even gets out of the bathroom. "Morgana," Gwen will sometimes say, reproachful, and Morgana will say, "What?" caught, strawberry on her wrist and the corners of her mouth red-sticky.

Morgana eats her butter chicken with chopsticks that she found God knows where. "D'you remember how we met?" she asks abruptly. 

"No, I've forgotten actually," grins Gwen. "I try not to remember the most traumatic events of my life."

"You were blown away by wit and charm. It was embarrassing really. I never know how to deal with fans. You star-fucker."

On Wednesday, Morgana brings her a chicken sandwich for lunch and Gwen's tied up in a conference call afternoon. She puts her hand over the receiver to tell Morgana to go home, she shouldn't be here; but Morgana just grins at her, nonchalant, and proceeds to eat the sandwich herself. 

Gwen amuses herself for the rest of the call by writing notes to Morgana and balling them up to throw at her. 

On Thursday she calls Morgana around 11 and says, "We should go out to dinner." 

"On a weekday? How improper, how indiscreet." 

Gwen can hear Morgana shift, and when she speaks again, her voice is muffled, and still scratchy. "Mmm. Someplace extravagant. I want to live beyond our means."

They don't go someplace extravagant, but they do hold hands over the table, and Morgana orders something with lots of chocolate for dessert. 

On the way out, Morgana catches sight of a display and says, "You should buy me those for our anniversary," a pair of tremendously impractical shoes, heels the length of one of those expensive yet impersonal pens Arthur'd bought her for her birthday the year before.

"Hmm," says Gwen, "I prefer those," plastic heels, plastic straps, bright pink floral pattern. "Please, let me buy them for you. If not for you, then our posterity."

She catches the brief sudden tightness at Morgana's mouth. "Our children would disown us," laughing slightly.

"For posterity," says Gwen firmly, and covers her laughter with her hand, until they're tugging at each other and laughing on the sidewalk, helpless.

By now the week is gathering itself up at the ends, and Gwen stops counting down until the weekend.


End file.
